


the love song of dean winchester

by boykingdom



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, First Kiss, First Time, Hand Jobs, Implied Bottom Dean, Love Confessions, M/M, Pining, Poetry, like a shit ton of pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-05
Updated: 2016-08-05
Packaged: 2018-07-26 20:37:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7589209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boykingdom/pseuds/boykingdom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He can’t stand having to swallow another tragedy. There are already so many that he keeps gilded around his heart. He wears loss like a second skin. If he believed in God, he knows he’d be praying <i>please</i>, and <i>not again, don’t steal someone I love from me again</i>, but faith is the thing just outside his reach, pulled farther and farther away with each goodbye he suffers through.  </p>
<p>(<i>Do I dare disturb the universe?</i>)</p>
            </blockquote>





	the love song of dean winchester

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to my best friend Prashani for reading this and telling me it was good, despite not actually knowing a lick about Supernatural. You're the real MVP.
> 
> You can find me on Tumblr as [boykingdom](http://boykingdom.tumblr.com). The rebloggable post for this fic is [here!](http://boykingdom.tumblr.com/post/148512272785/the-love-song-of-dean-winchester-11k-nc-17-let)

_Let us go then, you and I_  
_When the evening is spread out against the sky_  
_Like a patient etherized upon a table;_  
_us go, through certain half-deserted streets,_  
_The muttering retreats_  
_Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels_  
_And sawdust restaurants with oyster shells:_  
_Streets that follow like a tedious argument_  
_Of insidious intent_  
_To lead you to an overwhelming question…_  
_Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”_  
_Let us go and make our visit._

**

They’re exiting a bar somewhere in the middle of Wyoming, and Dean thinks it’s possible he’s never felt this good in his life.

Buzzed, but not drunk--intoxicated enough that he probably shouldn’t be driving, but sober enough that he knows Cas won’t really be upset if he does. There’s a warm glow in his belly and a heat in his cheeks, and he feels positively golden, a king of neon signs and billiards and dredges of alcohol. This is his kingdom; these are his people.

He feels so good that he laughs, happy and loud, and puts his hand on Cas’ shoulder just because he wants it there. Cas looks at him in confused amusement, and Dean is reminded of that night he took Cas to a brothel, and how good that had been, too. How he’d laughed as something within him shifted and suddenly he looked at Cas and saw his best friend.

How easy that had been. Everything in his life had been turning to shit and Cas was there and just-- _easy._

And it’s easy now, too, in a way it isn’t normally. Cas sways slightly into his touch, Dean feeling his shoulder under his coat a bit more firmly. He’s looking at Dean with kind eyes and a creased brow, like he also shares Dean’s happiness but isn’t sure why. Even though he’s an angel he’s got a little color in his cheeks, with his hair mussed and sticking out in about twenty different directions. It reminds Dean of how electric he looked when they first met.

There’s a street lamp that’s backlit him in a way that forms a sort of halo around the crown of his head, and Dean notices this just enough to think to himself _huh._

“What’s funny?” Cas says, voice low as ever. A small shiver climbs up Dean’s spine.

He smiles and feels it with his whole body, lit up like a firework.

“Nothin’,” he says. “Just happy, s’all.”

Cas’ smile ventures out of him slowly but completely, turning up the corners of his lips but really softening his eyes. _Beautiful_ , Dean allows himself to think. Just this once.

“Me too,” Cas says, quieter, like it’s a secret. Dean melts a little and pats Cas’ shoulder once before the two make their way to the parking lot together.

The silence on the ride home is comfortable. Dean has the radio turned down low so that it’s more background noise than anything, the only other sound being the mumble of the Impala’s engine and the breathing of her passengers. It’s dark out, past midnight, and it must have rained while they were in the bar because the pavement is wet, the moonlight and street lamps illuminating puddles with their mirror image.

Cas is looking out the window, blinking at the houses and stores and winding small-town streets. The Cas who Dean met nearly three years wouldn’t have done that, Dean thinks, even if he had wanted to. But this Cas is unabashed in his fascination with the everyday lives of humanity. Dean can see the rise and fall of his chest as he breathes, lets his eyes linger on the bolt of his jaw, wonders if he reached out and touched Cas’ neck what his pulse would feel like under his fingertips.

He’s been thinking about that a lot lately--about reaching out and touching Cas, his neck or his wrist or his hip or his chest. He doesn’t let himself _think_ about why he’s thinking about it, but the ache of his empty hands never does quite abate. He forces his eyes back to the road and tightens his grip on the wheel.

It’s not a long drive. He pulls into the lot and they exit the car, Cas getting out the normal human way because he knows flying in and out has Dean grumbly, that extra little reminder that Cas is something _other_ , something he could never stack up against. He doesn’t like to think about it. There are a lot of things he doesn’t like to think about.

The warm glow left over from the bar is being quickly sapped away, because Dean knows what happens now. Can see it in the way Cas shifts his feet subtly, the way he doesn’t quite meet Dean’s eye. That’s the part he hates more than anything.

When after a few seconds Cas opens his mouth and says “I should--” and Dean finishes his piece by saying “go,” it’s only because he knows how this goes. It’s happened more times than he’d care to count.

Cas looks at him with an apologetic downturn in the curve of his mouth. There’s something being said with his eyes, something like _I don’t want to_ or _I wish I could stay_ , but Dean has absolutely no idea how to respond to that so he pretends he doesn’t see it.

(But there is that small part of him that’s just--what if? What if he asked Cas to stay? What if he told him not to go yet? What if he reached out and put his palm to Cas’ jaw, traced fingertips along his cheekbones, felt the seam of his lips with the pad of his thumb?

This is a dangerous game his mind is playing, he thinks.)

“Yeah,” says Dean, and he looks away.

It’s like he can almost feel Cas struggling to find words. “I’ve had a lot of fun with you today,” he eventually says. It’s a little bit unnatural, a little bit offbeat, but maybe that’s what makes Dean smile.

“I did too,” he says, offering his grin to Cas, who takes it and allows some of the stiffness to drain out of his shoulders.

“I’ll try to come back tomorrow,” Cas responds, the moment sobering once more.

“Okay,” says Dean. He believes Cas will try. Whether he’ll succeed is another question. Dean suddenly feels very tired.

Cas looks like he wants to say something else, but Dean sees the minute shake of his head, the bob his Adam’s apple takes as he swallows. There’s the sound of wings batting, and Dean is alone.

He goes to bed numb and lays under the covers trying to tell himself that it’s _enough_. The touches, the smiles, the days but not the nights.

He feels cold.

**

_There will be time, there will be time_  
_To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;_  
_There will be time to murder and create,_  
_And time for all the works and days of hands_  
_That lift and drop and question on your plate;_  
_Time for you and time for me,_  
_And time yet for a hundred indecisions,_  
_And for a hundred visions and recisions and revisions,_  
_Before the taking of toast and tea._

**

Dean remembers, sometimes. His memories remind him of things he never asked them to.

He sees Castiel walking into the barn in Pontiac--he thinks about that one a lot, actually. He was ice and fire, charged and electric and too big for himself, like a lightening storm plugged up into a mason jar. Huge and cosmic and ancient, creation and empire personified, made of steel and without stain or fault. He was terrifying. Dean just about pissed his pants in the presence of him, not that he’ll ever admit it.

That memory catches him every time Cas does something soft around the edges with humanity. When his eyes light up with delight upon biting into a good burger, when he stops to pet a dog that had come wagging over to sniff his at shoes, when he wrinkles his nose slightly at the smell of sulfur. When he holds up Dean’s toothbrush and asks him why brushing twice a day is necessary, when his eyes dart to Dean the second he walks into a room, when he leans into Dean’s personal space because that’s apparently where he finds himself most comfortable.

Dean will hold his breath in those moments and that’s when he’ll remember. It’s like his brain is trying to tell him _This is who he is, this is the person who stands beside you. Look at what you’ve made of him now._ And then Dean will feel guilt, because Cas is still an angel but his wings reach closer to humanity everyday, and Dean has corrupted him by selfishly tethering him here. And then he’ll feel joy, because the closer Cas gets to humanity, the closer he gets to Dean. And then even more guilt will be pushed on top of that for thinking such a thing, and then his lungs will crush under the weight of it. 

Almost as often he sees Cas push him up against the wall in the green room, hand over his mouth, promise in his wide eyes. The moment that he shifted his faith away from his brothers and sisters and into Dean’s hands.

That memory comes when Cas is away, or when Dean can’t sleep at night. He’ll toss and turn under the covers and watch the alarm clock on the nightstand blink the passing of hours. _He rebelled for you_ , he thinks. _All of it, for you._ He always feels unworthy, always swallows down the lump that forms in his throat, always is reminded of how small he is in the universe--his tiny curled body wholly insignificant in the grand scheme, and certainly to an angel who has seen the formation of life itself. Dean is a little thing with the whole brunt of an angel’s faith placed on him, and it’s overwhelming. It’s fucking insane. And what could be a more powerful force than the faith of an angel?

(Honor. That’s the other emotion he refuses to believe he feels. Cas rebelled for him and he is so, so honored.)

Once, on a particularly rough night for their little pseudo-family, he saw Cas eye the whiskey peaking out of his duffle with an expression of mild interest, and Dean remembered the different Castiel he met when Zachariah whammied him into 2014. That Cas had been broken and empty and trying to mend together all his shattered pieces with booze and drugs and sex. His smiles were too wide, his eyes too blank, and Dean saw the way his hands never stopped shaking.

He shivered with that memory and acted quickly to distract Cas, who tilted his head a tick in confusion as Dean worked to choke down his panic. The sight of it relaxed him a little-- _he’s not him, he’s still here_ \--but Dean poured that whiskey down the bathroom sink that night nonetheless. Sam didn’t question him.

But there’s one more memory. The one where Cas has just pulled Dean out of that same 2014. They’re both standing on a road at night, Dean with his heart in his throat, relieved as he looked at his Cas, the one who didn’t have to ache for his wings. “That’s pretty good timing, Cas,” he had said, and Cas replied, “We had an appointment,” and Dean fell so hard in that second it’s a miracle he didn’t hit the pavement.

Love grabbed him by the gut and filled him from the inside until it was the very air he breathed. The pumping of blood from his heart no longer felt simply mechanic but felt like maybe it _meant_ something, like maybe it had found its purpose. It hadn’t had time to settle yet, to seep into his bones and muscles and hurt him and make him afraid, so he’d grabbed Cas’ shoulder and said “Don’t ever change.” Just because he wanted to say it. Just because it felt right. 

It’s the look that Cas gave him while his hand lingered on his coat that clings to him mind. It was gentle, almost searching. Dean looked into Cas’ eyes and saw something of his own emotions reflected back in them, and it made him strong, if only for a second.

That’s the memory that hurts the most. Because it makes Dean _hope_.

He’s staring at the ceiling tonight, sleep lost somewhere in the dark. His heart in his chest beats slow and hard, yearning for what he doesn’t have. It’s a lonely, quiet stretch of time. Dean doesn’t know too much about it, but he feels like it shouldn’t have to hurt like this.

The air is thick and covers him like a blanket when he kicks off the covers, pressing into him from all sides. The fluorescent lights from the motel sign outside shine through the window panes and make a yellow square of light upon the floor, but other than that the night is deep and inky, like he could swim in it. His hands and the place beside him in bed feel cold. Maybe it is supposed to be like this.

_Alone._

He shouldn’t have volunteered for the solo hunt. They always fuck with his head. Everything is easier to ignore when Sam’s soft snores are drifting out of the bed next to him, but it was a lone vamp, young and abandoned, and the job was easy. And Cas had promised to tag along to help out.

And Dean wants him here with every cell of his body. He remembers, then, the way that Cas had looked at him that night on the roadside, remembers how he _still_ looks at him sometimes, and a small part of his brain whispers quietly that maybe Cas is somewhere right now, wanting right back.

He rolls over and presses his face into the pillows as if he could physically smother the thought. Cas is an angel. He doesn’t _work_ like that. That’s not how-- angels can’t-- he just wouldn’t--

But what if--

Dean gets up. He goes to the bathroom sink, turns the knob for cold water, waits a moment for it to run clear, and cups his hands to splash water on his face. Then he looks into the face of his reflection, looks at the tiredness in his eyes, and says with contempt to the man in the mirror, “Stop being such a goddamn pussy.”

Okay. He’s okay.

He goes back to bed.

He’ll tell Cas, one day. Sit him down and hash it out. And then if Cas decides to leave--he’ll, well, he’ll just have to deal with it. And if Cas _looks_ at him again, if Cas decides he wants what Dean silently offers him every time he touches him--

His heart flutters like a hummingbird. He takes a slow, shaking breath.

One day.

There will be time.

Tomorrow he’ll change his face into iron to mask the longing. He’ll get up and put on clothes and drive to meet Sam halfway to wherever the fuck he is and he’ll pretend this night never happened. He thinks of Cas’ hands, of his mouth. Not now.

_There will be time_ , he tells himself.

The ticking clock of mortality sounds especially loud in his ear that night.

** 

_And indeed there will be time_  
_To wonder, “Do I dare?” and “Do I dare?”_  
_Time to turn back and descend the stair,_  
_With a bald spot in the middle of my hair--_  
_(They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”)_  
_My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to my chin,_  
_My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin--_  
_(They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin!”)_  
_Do I dare_  
_Disturb the universe?_  
_In a minute there is time,_  
_For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse._

**

It’s a week later, and they’re somewhere deep in the steaming pocket of south Georgia. Dean can’t even remember the name of the town; it’s too small to be worth remembering, filled only by a couple stop lights, a small downtown area with a few mom-and-pop shops, a scattered population of hardly over three thousand, confederate flags, and a lone motel.

It’s a run-down place. Rustic, to put it nicely. But they caught wind of a wendigo hiding somewhere in the thick woods to the north, and it’s not like they have another choice if they don’t want to sleep in the car.

Dean grunts in distaste when they enter the room. The wallpaper is an honestly gross shade of yellow and peeling to reveal the red brick underneath, one of the lights won’t stop flickering when Sam flips the switch, the carpet is purple and dusty. This combined with the way the girl at the front desk had literally jumped in surprise when they entered, Dean thinks it’s pretty safe to say this place doesn’t get a lot of business. At least the linens are clean.

He tosses his duffel at the foot of the bed closest the door and strips out of his jacket and flannel, leaving him in only a black t-shirt. He forgets sometimes just how _hot_ it can get in the south. Different from anywhere north of the Mason-Dixon, humidity can have sweat beading on his brow in minutes from doing nothing but standing.

Sam stretches until his back pops, cramped from a whole ten hours sitting in car, and then sighs, starts picking the room for the WiFi password. Dean flops on the bed and stares at the ceiling, where some sort mysterious brown stain has found a home. He decides he doesn’t want to know.

They got an early start, so it’s only just now nearing five. They’ve still got a couple hours of daylight left. If they wanted, they could empty another cup or three of coffee into their bodies, put on their suits, and try and go out and interview some witnesses. The thought of it makes Dean internally groan. Yeah, not tonight, thanks.  
If he’s being honest with himself, he’s tired enough that he could probably close his eyes and go to sleep right now. But he’s not _that_ old.

“Hey,” he says to Sam, sitting up. “Let’s say we have a night in. We could get pizza and uh,” he picks up the list of channels on the bedside table. “Well, there’s gotta be something on.”

Sam chuckles a little at that. “I’m down. Wanna see what Cas is doing?” 

Dean’s heart leaps to his throat and he has to swallow it down to compose himself.

“Uh,” he stammers, out of anything intelligent to say. “I mean, uh, I guess we could. He’s probably busy, though. Probably has better things to do. We could try-- you could call him, or I guess I could call him, it’s, uh. It’s whatever.”

He shuts himself up and goes back to pretending to read the list of channels, praying Sam doesn’t notice the way he can feel his blush spreading to his ears.

Sam arches an eyebrow but otherwise doesn’t comment on his brother’s apparent inability to string together words. 

“You pray to him,” Sam says. “I’m gonna take a shower.” And then before it even registers in Dean’s brain that it’s happening Sam has gathered his clothes and locked himself in the bathroom, where the sounds of water hitting tile begin to steadily leak through under the door. Dean blinks, sits cross-legged on the bed, and tries to settle his breathing.

_Don’t do this_ , he thinks to himself. He said he wasn’t gonna do this, and he’s not. He can pray to Cas and be around Cas without wanting more. He can keep control of his emotions so that his chest doesn’t hurt every time he looks at Cas. But it’s hard to keep control of your emotions when it feels like they’re the building blocks of your very atoms.

Dean clears his throat and shifts a little to lean himself back on the headboard. “Hey, Cas,” he starts, voice low but gruff, trying to hide the careful way his tongue rolls over his name. “We’re in,” pausing, looking at his key for the name of the motel and the town, “Senoia, Georgia, Peachtree Motel, first room. We’re having a night in and wanna know if you feel like joining us. You know, if you’re not too busy. It’s okay if you are. Just thought we might as--”

“Hello, Dean.”

He lets out a breath he didn’t even know he was holding in.

Cas looks good. Dean knows that the civil war in Heaven has been running him ragged these days, but for now the shadows under his eyes haven’t grown darker and he doesn’t look like he’s about to collapse out of exhaustion. Dean rakes his eyes over his body anyway to make sure there’s nothing bleeding or in need of medical attention. If his eyes linger, it’s just because he’s being thorough.

He flicks his gaze up to meet Cas’ and finds his eyes warm, eyelashes long. A smile quirks up the corners of his lips, small enough that someone who wasn’t Dean wouldn’t even be able to detect it. But no one knows Cas the way that Dean does.

“Heya, Cas,” he murmurs, a little in awe that he came afterall. The storm that raged through Dean when Cas was gone quiets, something in him going still in the presence of him. Breathing is easier. He fingers still itch to touch, but the feeling of drowning is replaced with the feeling of floating. Of _I’m not in control of this, and that’s okay._

There’s a moment of silence that means nothing and means everything and there’s something in the air between them that tugs at Dean like a magnet. There’s a thread wrapped around Dean’s soul that’s attached itself to Cas’ grace, and he can scarcely move, it’s been pulled so taut. 

There’s also a question between them, one so loud now that he wonders if Cas can hear it too. A question he’s kept suppressed for years now, one he’s pushed into the corners of his mind and willed it to never choke his thoughts again, but for once, he allows himself to think it: _Do I dare?_

Do I dare? Do I dare? If he does, it’ll be the bravest thing he’ll ever do. It’ll be more than fighting monsters, than looking down the barrel of a gun, than standing toe-to-toe with the devil himself. It’ll go against the grain of everything Heaven and Hell ever intended for them, just as they’ve been going against that grain since Cas rebelled for him. But is that not the point? Free will? 

Cas shifted galaxies so that Dean and Sam could live. He ripped up pages of ancient scripture because Dean convinced him that it was right. This is just one more step in their revolt against destiny. _Do I dare disturb the universe?_

The squeak of a knob both signifies the end of Sam’s shower and serves to remind Dean that, yes, Sam is still part of this equation.

When Sam emerges from the bathroom it’s while he’s running a towel over his shaggy hair, fully clothed. He brightens when he sees Cas, happy at the unexpected surprise. When he veers his eyes from where Dean is sitting and where Cas is standing, his smile grows even wider.

“So,” he grins cheerily, “pizza, then?”

**

_Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets_  
_And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes_  
_Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows?..._

_I should have been a pair of ragged claws_  
_Scuttling across the floors of silent seas._

**

The evening starts out good enough, but like more good things in Dean’s life, it doesn’t last.

In fact, Dean is absolutely fucking thrilled to have the three of them in the same room without anyone dying or dead or fighting something that could potentially make them dead. It’s mollifying, and it just plain feels right.

They order pizza from some joint that takes over half an hour to actually make it to the motel, and it turns out that there’s actually nothing at all on tv. Eventually they land on _Jeopardy_ , and Cas answers all of the historical and science questions but doesn’t know jack shit when it comes to pop culture, where Dean comes in handy. Sam is great at both because he’s a bastard.

They catch Cas up on the case with pizza-stuffed mouths, but none of them are especially interested in talking about the job. Cas tries a slice and chews it like he really _wants_ to like it, but he puts it back down and doesn’t touch it again. Dean laughs, feeling warm and full from the look on Cas’ face.

There’s only one couch and not a lot of other seating available, so the three of them crowd in on it, Dean in the middle, and it makes Dean happy to have the two people that he loves most in the world so close. Cas leans into Dean’s space more and more as the minutes pass by, and it’s everything Dean can do to not nudge Cas’ knee with his, to press their thighs together. His body begs him to.

Cas came with news, though. There’s something in his face that almost looks excited, and maybe Sam doesn’t catch it but Dean knows that there’s something that he’s been itching to say all evening. Dean turns the tv off once _Jeopardy_ comes to a close, none of them really paying much attention to it at this point, and turns to face Cas.

“Well, Cas,” he says, “what’ve you got for us?”

Cas looks taken aback, blinks twice. But he looks between the two brothers and clears his throat. He looks… _nervous_ , almost, and Dean is suddenly afraid at whatever it could be that makes someone like Cas nervous. The bad feeling settles on his shoulders and creeps down his back.

But Cas gives them a smile, a little weary but full of relief.

“It’s over,” he says, like he can’t quite believe it.

Now it’s Sam and Dean’s turns to blink. The dread is a weight now, seeps into his skin, teases along his ribs.

“It’s… it’s over?” Sam says, prompting, probably knowing what Cas means and hoping that it’s true.

“The war,” Cas clarifies. “It’s over. We won. Raphael is dead.”

He doesn’t look especially happy to admit that, and a part of Dean feels bad about it. He knows Cas didn’t want it that way unless he was given no choice. But in war, choice is a rare privilege.

_This is good_ , Dean has to remind himself. _This is great. This doesn’t have to mean--_

“We’re locking up Heaven. No more angels will be able to get in or get out. No one will be able to meddle with human affairs ever again.”

A deep mass of _something_ strikes at Dean’s heart, something so huge and all-consuming he can’t even tell what it is. It gags him and takes all the warmth from his body, fills his lungs. Nothing about this is comprehensible, but he knows that he has to be _away_ , away from whatever this is, away from his own body and his own mind.

He doesn’t even know what Sam says next, what Cas’ response is. He’s aware that some sort of exchange happens, that someone’s hand is on his shoulder and that someone is saying his name, but he doesn’t know who. He’s suddenly moving, though, standing, surprised that his feet can even keep him upright with how heavy his heart is, made of brick, obsidian. 

“I gotta get some air,” Dean chokes out. It’s not a lie; he’s suddenly feeling incredibly queasy and fresh air seems like a good idea right now.

He has tunnel vision while walking toward the door, ignoring how Sam and Cas stand up and call for him. The doorknob is already cold in his hand and he turns it, walking out into the newly dark night.

He blinks. Breathes. Tries to remind himself how to function properly. Because it’s so easy to do this--to let emotions overcome him, to lose his senses to feeling. To turn himself so inward that the world outside his mind is hardly even there. It’s happened before, and it never ends well. So he forces himself to slow down.

Cas is leaving him.

It’s like the realization comes fully to him all over again, except this time he’s present enough to be aware of the pain in his chest. 

This is what he gets for hoping.

He can’t stand having to swallow another tragedy. There are already so many that he keeps gilded around his heart. He wears loss like a second skin. If he believed in God, he knows he’d be praying _please_ , and _not again, don’t steal someone I love from me again_ , but faith is the thing just outside his reach, pulled farther and farther away with each goodbye he suffers through. 

And as it is, he doesn’t want God’s help. Cas fought so hard for his free will, and if leaving Dean is what he chooses to do with it, then God should have no say. No one but Cas should. But Dean is a greedy, selfish creature made of longing and dreams, tugging at threads to get Cas closer.

He deserves this, he realizes. For clipping Cas’ wings, for putting him on a leash when all he ever wanted was to be free. He went from following God to following Dean and didn’t even bat an eye. And now he’s figured out that the only reason he sticks around on Earth is because Dean put a tether on him there and begged him with every way except for words to stay--said it with his eyes, with his hands, a silent _please don’t leave me_.

Cas will be better off without him.

He wants to be noble and let that make him feel better, but want is hardly ever privy to logic.

It’s a clear night, warm but without the feeling of being cooked from the inside out that the day brings. One pro of small towns like these is the lack of air pollution. The stars are as beautiful as Dean has ever seen them, sprinkled and scattered like someone knew what they were doing when they put them there. He didn’t get his keys when he stumbled out of the motel room, so he starts to walk. No direction in mind. Just wanting to move.

He ends up following a sidewalk into a neighborhood of narrow, tangled backroads. The houses are slumped over and sagging like they’re fixing to fall asleep. A cat meows at him from a lawn chair that’s been damaged by rain and bleached by the sun. He passes a house with a porch swing that someone has fallen asleep in, snoring softly, and it almost makes him laugh. It might look sketchy, but this place feels safe. 

He doesn’t know how long he walks. He keeps hoping that maybe if he walks far enough he’ll start to feel numb, but it doesn’t happen. A broken heart throbs like an open wound. The pain isn’t an option. He knows that, but still he itches for a drink, for something to make him forget if only for a second.

Men and women get ready for bed and tuck in the their children on the other sides of those walls. Families full of love given and received in kind. Each and every one of them has a story that he knows nothing of, just as they know nothing of his. It’s not a revolutionary realization, but it’s still a jarring one.

In the middle of a map of unknown stories, Dean Winchester looks at the stars.

He is so _small_ in the universe. Of all the stories who have ever lived and all of those who will, of the billions of other stories playing out on this stage of the Earth as he stands at dusk in these narrow streets, he is only one. And looking up at space and knowing that Cas moved the cosmos before he met Dean, that he inhaled their dust and exhaled creation… it’s no wonder why Cas wants to go back. Castiel may be a whole chapter in Dean’s life--or maybe an introduction, a conclusion, hundreds of pages written too quickly in a sprawling, desperate hand--but Dean isn’t more than a page in Cas’. A sentence. A footnote. Cas was built to be grander. 

It’s what he’s never wanted to admit to himself but what he’s always known. This day had to come. Dean just wishes he could’ve done something about the way his heart beats for Cas first, if he had been just an inch braver, a little more daring. _Almost_ means nothing in the face of Cas’ infinity, but goddamnit does it mean something to Dean.

He closes his eyes when he feels tears coming on, but it doesn’t stop two from leaking through, reflecting the moonlight like dewdrops. He rubs them away hastily with the heel of his hand. Crying over an angel going back to Heaven… what would his dad say? 

A hollow space has found a home in him. Maybe he should find a bar, afterall. Whiskey won’t fill it, but it will make it hurt less, if he’s lucky enough. 

He’s pulling his phone from his back pocket to try and search for joints near him when it suddenly rings in his hand. He startles as the square screen lights up with the name Cas, but he doesn’t feel nervous or excited or any of the other emotions he’s prone to when Cas calls. He just feels tired.

He could ignore it, and for a second he considers doing just that. But he’s too easy when it comes to Cas.

“Hello?” he says into the speaker, voice weary, a little bit ragged. There’s a beat of silence and Dean wonders if Cas picked up on it.

“Dean,” Cas breathes, relieved, which surprises Dean. Did he not think he’d pick up? Has he been worried?

How long has he been out, anyway?

Dean scratches the back of his neck. “Yeah. Hey, man,” he says, mostly because he has no idea where they go from here, and the sound of Cas’ voice is making him wish he’d never left.

There’s another pause. Dean tries to imagine what Cas looks like right now--if he’s still in the motel room, if Sam is there with him, if he’s standing or sitting, what his face looks like. He closes his eyes, trying to picture it. 

“Dean,” Cas says again, quieter, “please come back. I have to talk to you.” A note of pleading softly laces its way between the words. And any fight that Dean may have had drains out of him; Cas always makes Dean too soft.

“Okay,” Dean murmurs, resigned. He’ll go back and hear Cas’ goodbye before he leaves him here, on Earth, alone in his bed, just as he’s left him every night. He almost wishes Cas would leave without a goodbye, but maybe closure is necessary for the both of them. Not that Dean likes it.

His legs carry him back to the motel slowly, trying to school his face into something harder, something that doesn’t show every one of his sentiments like words on a page. He’s usually a master of it. This time it doesn’t work. 

**

_Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,_  
_Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?_  
_But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,_  
_Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) brought in upon a platter,_  
_I am no prophet--and here’s no great matter;_  
_I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,_  
_And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,_  
_And in short, I was afraid._

**

When Dean gets back to the Peachtree Motel, his phone is telling him that it’s nearing midnight. It’s funny how that can happen--how time can be arrested in the face of panic. He hadn’t even noticed he’d walked so far. He’d be lying to say his feet didn’t hurt.

He lingers and hesitates outside of the room, knowing that turning the doorknob will be as decisive as pulling the trigger of a gun. He paces, wonders if they can hear him, stops, makes himself breathe. It doesn’t have to hurt if he doesn’t let it. It’s like pulling off a band-aid--he can do this fast and not feel a thing. Then it will be over and done with. 

He swallows. The idea of Cas being _over and done with_ tastes sour in his mouth, churns his gut. Is this how Cas views it? Just another step of returning peace to Heaven?

Does he tell Cas, before he goes?

But he won’t, and he can feel that in the curve of his spine, because Dean Winchester is a coward. Just like how he could never ask Cas to stay, like he never offered Cas the other side of the bed, like every touch he never let come to pass, every hand left suspended in the air only to be returned awkwardly to his side. Every one of his actions regarding Cas have almost always screamed how weak his is, without the strength to force the moment to its crisis. That’s how he’ll exit Cas’ life, too; weak, wanting, silent.

Leaving Dean alone with his thoughts too long fucks him up. He knows that about himself, so he doesn’t know why he does it, except maybe because he deserves it. No more. He pulls the trigger and turns the doorknob, nudges the door open with a creak from the hinges.

Cas is sitting at the foot of Dean’s bed, phone clutched in his hand, looking at the space on the floor between where his feet are firmly planted. He sits up straight when Dean enters and whips around to see him, something like solace coloring his face.

Sam isn’t in the room. Dean almost wants to ask where he is, but he finds himself selfishly glad. At least he won’t have an audience.

“ _Dean_ ,” Cas says, in that way he always does, like it means more than the sound it makes in the air. He stands up.

Dean shuts the door behind them and places his cell on the bedside table, not meeting Cas’ eye. “Hey, Cas,” he mumbles lamely. He knows they can’t pretend that he never ran out, not with this conversation they’re about to have. 

There’s a pause heavy with sadness.

Dean breaks it. “Listen, I get it,” he starts, because there’s no use beating around the bush here. “And I’m glad for you. I mean, gotta feel good, right? Going back home?”

He chances a look at Cas and is surprised to find him squinting at Dean, head cocked to the side, question written in his features. 

“No, really,” Dean says, feeling his heart bleed with the words, “I get it. And, uh… I mean, you know. We’ve had some good times. And,” he fumbles, voice wavering, longing so deeply to be closer to Cas that it shreds him inside, “some bad times. A lot of bad times.”

He has absolutely no idea how to do this. You’d think he’d be a pro at _pretend it doesn’t hurt, pretend you don’t love him_ by now, but somehow, at the precipice of everything they’ve built together, the effort has him shaking. 

Don’t fucking cry, he tells himself, clenching his jaw while he messes with the alarm clock for no reason other than to keep his hands busy and his eyes from Cas’. _Don’t fucking cry, you bastard._

“Dean.”

“But you gotta do what you gotta do. And if you gotta do this, then, hey, I’m not gonna stand in your way. Life goes on, and all that shit.”

“ _Dean_.”

“Besides,” Dean shakes out, feeling more and more unstable by the second, “it couldn’t have been too much fun down here, right? Not compared to what you’re used to, at least. I’m just sorry that you had to--”

There’s a hand on his shoulder, solid and warm, high enough that Dean is hyper aware of Cas’ thumb brushing the bare skin exposed by his t-shirt beside his neck. And he doesn’t know why, but it shuts him right up. He lets his eyes flutter closed and his head hang. This is how soldiers feel when they know they’ve lost the war.

“Look at me,” Cas whispers. It’s gentler than just about anything Dean has ever heard him say, like Dean is made of glass.

He doesn’t know how to say no, so he does. Turns slowly, eyes open. Cas drops his hand and even with all the shit that’s happening, Dean wishes he’d put it back.

But Cas is looking at him in a way that’s soft, understanding, _sad_. Dean’s stomach drops even as Cas reaches over and touches his jaw with the very tips of his fingers. The feeling of it has Dean’s heart pounding.

“I’m not leaving you, Dean,” Cas says.

His brain grinds to a halt.

His thoughts are made up entirely of fragmented sentences. Something isn’t computing. Like he’s missed something here.

“What?” he asks, and any other time he would cringe at how feeble and small his voice sounds. He blinks tears away, lungs rattling.

“I’m not leaving you,” Cas says again, slowly, looking so purposefully into Dean’s eyes that he has never felt so exposed, so bare. There’s a rawness to the moment as he crumbles under Cas’ gaze.

“ _What_?” Because he refuses to believe it. Because the universe could never show kindness to him, not where he doesn’t deserve it. Because this is some sick joke and the butterfly of hope he feels will turn into a snake and devour him from the inside any second now, and he’s staring at Cas, but Cas is just looking right back. And then it dawns on Dean that Cas means what he’s saying.

He gasps brokenly and he’s reaching for Cas. Curls his fists in the lapels on his trenchcoat and pulls him forward, lays his head on his shoulder while he shudders. The emotional shock of it overwhelms his system in too many directions so that he doesn’t know what he’s feeling, but relief makes him weak in the knees and something like desperation keeps him clinging to Cas.

And Cas, the one who always seems to know what it is Dean needs, wraps his arms around him and just holds him, lets Dean clutch him close. It’s not quite a hug, but it still feels right.

Cas isn’t leaving him.

He pulls back, embarrassed with the spectacle he’s created of himself. He wipes his tears and inhales deeply. But Cas has seen Dean at his absolute lowest, and there’s no judgement in his eyes. 

“You’re--” his voice wavers, so he clears his throat and tries again. “You’re not leaving?”

Maybe it’s because of the way Dean says it, but suddenly Cas’ hands are bracketing his face. Dean holds his breath, shocked into stillness.

Cas touches Dean like he’s worth something. The incredibly tender way his thumbs stroke along his cheekbones counters the determination in the set of his brow but matches the blue of his eyes. They’re wide in the same way they were that night on the side of the road after 2014. Dean could almost believe they were there--it’s the same unstable, precarious ecstasy that fills him, like he’d been made to jump off a cliff and someone had pulled him away the second he was about to do it.

But it was that look that he fell for years ago. And it was that look that had him awake well into the night with hope burning his blood. Something about it is terribly dangerous and, even after all of this, Dean is afraid of what it means.

He couldn’t break eye contact even with Cas even if he wanted to.

“How could I ever--” Cas starts, fumbles. It’s unlike him, the back of Dean’s mind notes. There’s a certain passion in his tone that’s _begging_ Dean to understand. “How could I ever leave you? How could I when…”

But that’s just the problem--Dean doesn’t understand. He thinks maybe he knows where this is going but he doesn’t know why or how. He has absolutely no fucking clue and it makes his heart clamour. He can feel his pulse where it beats against his throat and can hear it in his ears.

He sits down on the bed, needing something underneath him, and tugs Cas with him. His hand falls from Dean’s face but his eyes never leave him. He doesn’t look scared. How is he not terrified?

“ _Cas_ ,” he says. He doesn’t know what else to.

If this whole thing was supposed to teach him a lesson, if the the universe were trying to make him realize how much he wants Cas, then the universe got it wrong. He already knew it. He just didn’t want to admit it to himself.

Cas looks down. He closes his eyes and breathes deeply. The two of them are suspended for a few seconds, like a water droplet about to fall from a blade of grass. The thread that ties them tightens and pulls. 

“How could I leave you when I love you like this?” Cas whispers. Dean’s veins feel on fire when Cas slowly takes his hand and presses it palm down to Cas’ chest, his own hand covering Dean’s, keeping it there.

Cas’ heart drums against his palm in tandem with his own. Does it hurt like his? Has it for as long?

Dean gasps at the hugeness of the two of them.

Now it’s his turn to close his eyes.

This is too much. He doesn’t know how to handle it. But beneath all the fear is a soaring happiness, of _Cas wants him back_ , of _he doesn’t have to love alone_. Everything, if only he could make that leap.

“Dean?” Cas asks weakly. “Tell me you want this?”

For the first time it comes out unsure. Dean wants nothing more than to reassure Cas, to say that he’s wanted this so hard and for so long that he had begun to think that he was born to love Cas, but he can’t. He opens his eyes and Cas lets his hand drop.

“I’m scared, Cas,” he mumbles, because it’s the truth. He can feel it in the way his chest rattles. 

“What are you scared of?” 

He doesn’t know how to put it in words.

He’s been scared of the way Cas makes him feel virtually since it started. Scared of how vulnerable it makes him. Scared of another pressure point being used against him. Of Cas getting hurt because of him, of him dying like everyone who gets that close to him does. Of Cas finally realizing how selfish and small he is, of Cas leaving him and taking his heart with him. Dean already knows that that’s not something he recovers from.

“Everything,” Dean breathes. “You deserve better. And one day you’ll realize it.”

The “and leave me” goes unspoken, but he’s sure Cas can hear it anyway. That’s just the pattern of all of Dean’s relationships. He fucks things up too easily, just like he fucked things up with Cassie, with Lisa. Love doesn’t fit into the business--that’s the sacrifice he’d been unwittingly forced to make.

Cas is deeper and closer than he’s ever gotten. It’s petrifying, being so soft for someone when he’s only ever lived a life that’s asked him to be the opposite. 

“I don’t know how to do this, man,” he chokes out. “I don’t-- I don’t know if I can. I need you too much.”

Cas scoots on the bed to close the inches separating them, full of that same resolve he had before. “Do you think I know how to do this?” he asks quietly. “I’ve never even-- angels aren’t _built_ for this, Dean. I was never supposed to feel this way. I’m defective. Broken.”

“Cas--”

“And I wouldn’t have it any other way,” Cas says. “Not if it meant I couldn’t love you. Never that.” 

The use of that word again sends a fresh wave of joy through Dean, carving through the insecurity, the fear, warming him. Cas shakes his head and his smile is small, a little self-deprecating. “They tried to fix me. Do you remember?” When they hauled Cas’ ass up to Bible camp. That time after he came into Dean’s dream to give him a message. Dean nods. Of course he remembers. “They couldn’t. They tried for _years_ to cure me of it, Dean. They thought they had. _I_ thought they had. But all of my doubts returned the second I saw you again.”

Cas reaches up to trace his fingers along Dean’s jaw again. He keeps his eyes on the path they take from the bolt, to the underside, to his chin. His touch is so careful, so steady. How frequently Dean has dreamed of this. “Your soul is too bright for its own good, Dean Winchester,” he murmurs, solemn, holy. “You are a light from which I can scarcely keep myself away.”

He looks up to meet Dean’s eye, and Dean is breathless to see the intensity in them, how they too are wet with raw emotion. “Do you see now, why I could never leave you?”

Dean’s love for Cas is something whole. It is something so embedded in him that not a day passes where he can’t feel it under his skin. It presses on his shoulders, grits his teeth together. He was the Earth and Cas was the sky, and so Dean ate the dust and dirt of love while he pined for the stars that Cas belonged to.

But he can see now that Cas’ love for Dean is ethereal in a way he isn’t even able to compute. It is as vast as Castiel and just as ancient, like lightning and fire. It is the ocean meeting the shore, just as it had met it forever, just as it always would.

The two of them met in the land of fire and blood. The met somewhere in the middle of holiness and gritty humanity. He remembers the light, the heat, the feeling of something snapping into place.

Dean kisses Cas and together the two of them burn. 

** 

_And would it have been worth it, after all,_  
_After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,_  
_Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,_  
_Would it have been worthwhile,_  
_To have bitten off the matter with a smile,_  
_To have squeezed the universe into a ball_  
_To roll it towards some overwhelming question,_  
_To say: “I am Lazarus, come from the dead,_  
_Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all”..._

**

They’re both starving for this. It begins gentle but sure, Dean leaning into Cas’ space and pressing their lips together. The kiss fills him, lights him from the inside, and it’s as though he has never been so aware of his own body, of Cas’. Of the shape they create together, slowly becoming more tangled.

The first thing that Dean thinks when he opens his mouth to Castiel’s is _finally_ , and the second thing is _God, yes_. Dean has kissed and shared the breath of so many different people, but it’s never once felt like this. He’s giddy and nervous, and he knows how deep this is, what it means for the two of them, and he’s ready for it. The arch of Cas’ lips tastes like forever. 

It’s not rough, but it’s passionate. It’s the kiss of two people who have waited too long. 

Dean has both arms under Cas’ trenchcoat and wrapped around him, trying to get them as close as possible. Cas has one hand cupping Dean’s face and the other in his hair, gentle, but holding him there like he never wants him to leave. _He’s wanted this too_ , Dean thinks breathlessly. Has he dreamed of this, like Dean has? Has he imagined them together? 

This is better than any of Dean’s dreams, because it’s _real_. That’s really Cas’ solid warmth molded against him, really Cas’ mouth touching his own. He’s amazed by it, in awe.

Cas is inexperienced but Dean is too overwhelmed to use any of his usual tricks--his kiss isn’t meant to seduce or arouse, it’s meant to pour all of the longing he’s had for Cas into him, make him feel it. A groan comes from Cas, starting somewhere deep in his chest, and the sound of it makes Dean whimper.

Cas may not have to actually breathe, but Dean’s a human with lungs that require air and sometimes it’s so easy to forget that around Cas, so he breaks the kiss with a small gasp, panting softly. It would kill them both to go too far, so they press their foreheads together, the air between them warm.

The look that Cas gives him is something still. His mouth is red and gently parted, but his expression speaks of a calm sort of peace. Dean thinks that maybe he feels the same sort of completion that he feels. He looks at Dean with reverence, like he’s sacred, and Dean can’t believe that he once thought Cas to be without emotions. Behind the tranquility Dean can see the joy, the love, he too unable to believe the privilege of this.

Nothing Dean has ever done has ever felt so intimate as the handful of seconds in which they breathe each other’s air. There are absolutely no walls here. The bareness of it shakes him. 

Dean has always been vulnerable to Cas in a way he just can’t be to others, and this is that times a thousand. He puts a hand at the back of Cas’ neck and leads him gently into another kiss, this one slower. They figure it out together. 

Cas’ tongue touching his makes Dean shudder and crowd closer, heat stirring within him. Cas carefully nudges him back into the pillows, mouth never leaving his, and yeah, Dean wants this. He wants this so bad that his hands shake when they climb up to push off Cas’ trenchcoat.

They undress each other slowly. He takes care of Cas’ coat and jacket while they both kick their shoes and socks off. It’s hard for Cas to get Dean’s t-shirt off when they’re so close, but Dean sits up a bit and they tug it over his head together. Cas’ hands guide Dean into unbuttoning his own shirt, and Dean’s happy to find that Cas trembles just like he does. He drops Cas’ dress shirt to the side of the bed.

There’s a moment, then, when Dean lays back down and Cas hovers over him, both of them shirtless, that they simply allow themselves to look at each other. Cas is lithe but muscular, a little thicker in the waist than Dean and a shade tanner. He is the single most gorgeous thing Dean has ever seen. He urges to worship every inch of him.

There’s want in the way Cas rakes his eyes over Dean’s naked flesh, but it’s tender, warm. His pupils are dilated and there’s a very noticeable tent in his dress pants, and Dean marvels as he thinks, _I did that_. He thinks maybe he should be ashamed to have defiled an angel so thoroughly, but he can’t find it in himself. There is nothing about this that is not pure, not holy.

Cas leans down and the skin-on-skin contact of Cas’ stomach to his makes Dean gasp. Cas puts his face to the side of Dean’s neck and kisses it twice, almost chastely, but it’s enough for Dean to reach up and put his hands to Cas’ back, mapping the plains of it.

“I have wanted this,” Cas breathes into the skin by Dean’s jugular, “for so long.”

Dean swallows. Cas puts his mouth to the space below his Adam’s apple. Dean grabs at Cas’ shoulders, wanting to keep him there, to keep him as close as possible and never to let anything separate them again, and for Cas not to see the way his eyes grow wet at his words.

“ _Cas_ ,” he chokes. 

“Ever since I first saw your soul.” His voice is a low murmur. For Dean’s ears only. “I knew that I wanted to be near you, but I didn’t know what it meant. You made me feel like more than a soldier. More than just one of millions.” Cas inhales and exhales deeply, gathering himself. “I loved you so much. I loved you every single second. Even when you were with the Braedens, I never stopped wanting you.”

Cas pulls himself away and props himself up on his left elbow, his right hand fitted to the faded scar on Dean’s shoulder. “I never imagined that you’d… that you’d…”

Unshed tears shimmer in Cas’ eyes and he can’t cry, damnit, because he’s an angel, because angels aren’t supposed to cry, because if Cas cries then Dean’s a fucking goner. 

He pulls Cas down and kisses the breath out of him, kisses him with everything he is, and Cas seems to understand it for what it is--a _me too_ , a _please, yes_.

Dean flips them over so that he can properly give Cas’ body the attention it deserves, kissing a hot path down his chest and stomach. Cas grabs hold of Dean’s hair when he runs his tongue over a nipple, panting. Dean loves the flatness of his chest--he’s been with a few guys, but not as many as he’d like, and not since Sam left for Stanford. The only real experiences he really has are a few blowjobs in bathrooms and back alleys, some handys in the backseat of his car. He’d always cleaned himself up, zipped up his pants, and pretended it never happened. He’s never had it like this before.

It makes him think of unexplored territory, of all the times he’s woken up hot and hard and ashamed, dreamt of Cas moving inside him. His breath hitches at the thought, but he’s not ready for it. Not yet.

There will be time. There really will be.

He’d almost forgotten the reason they’re like this, that there’s an endgame to their ministrations. He works his way up back up, presses an open-mouthed kiss to Cas’ jaw, his cheek, his temple, then his lips, sweet and slow. He reaches between them and lightly puts his palm to the bulge at the front of Cas’ slacks. Cas moans quietly, eyelids fluttering. Dean thinks it again, that he’s never seen anything so gorgeous in his life. He feels his own dick pulse at the sight of him. 

He has Cas look at him, question in his eyes. “Is this okay?” Dean asks lowly. 

Cas blinks and nods, reaching down and putting his hand over Dean’s, having Dean put more pressure on where Cas wants it most, the weight of their hands combined. “ _Yes_ ,” Cas says. 

That’s all the permission Dean needs. He straddles Cas’ hips and makes quick work of the zipper, tugging his pants down while Cas kicks them off, down to a pair of simple white boxers. He strokes Cas through them for a second which has Cas gripping his shoulder, digging the pads of his fingers into his skin. Then he leans down and kisses Cas below the navel as he pulls his boxers down.

Cas’ cock is red and already leaking with arousal, and Dean has to physically collect himself at the sight of it. His heart is racing when he tentativley licks a stripe up the side. It tastes like skin and Cas, who gasps “ _Dean,_ ” and fists a hand in Dean’s hair, drawing him up. 

Cas’ mouth is back on his and the kiss is hard, his bottom lip between Cas’ teeth, and it fuels the fire in Dean. He could come like this--kissing Cas, rutting at the firmness of his thigh. But he’s waited too long to not do this properly.

Cas seems to agree when he reaches down and undoes Dean’s zipper, slowly, like he’s savoring it. A part of Dean just wants to get this show on the road but he thinks that maybe he needs this, needs it slowly and carefully, needs to make it last. Cas has never done this with anyone and Dean has never done this with someone he’s felt so much for. Slow might be what they both need right now. 

They get Dean out of his pants and boxershorts while they kiss. Cas runs a warm hand from the back of his knee to the small of his back, and Dean is at a loss for words about how _good_ this is, the two of them together, not a stitch of clothing between them. They gasp in tandem when Dean shifts them just right and their cocks touch, breaking apart and gaping open-mouthed at each other. 

Cas rolls them over once more so he’s suspended over Dean and they slide against each other. Dean moans brokenly at the heat between them, pleasure spreading through his veins. He clutches at Cas harder. Cas kisses his chest and shivers. 

They have sex. They move gently and deliberately and locked together, rising and setting like the sun. 

When Dean reaches down and takes the two of them in his hand, Cas kisses his mouth wetly. When he moves to rub at the head of Cas’ weeping erection, he buries his face in the side of Dean’s neck. When Dean whispers Cas’ name, Cas looks at Dean and says, “You’re so beautiful,” and Dean feels the blush spread further.

Dean starts talking quietly when they get closer. “Fuck, baby, I got you,” and “So gorgeous,” and “Wanted this so badly.” He doesn’t know if Cas even hears him but he wraps his fist around Dean’s and they stroke each other together, quicker the more desperate they become.

They work to something that’s been brewing in both of them for a long time now. Dean absently wonders if maybe this is the ultimate act of rebellion, of this too was crossed out of God's unspoken scripture. He likes that idea. He and Castiel have a habit of spilling ink.

Cas has been home to Dean’s heart since he gave it to him on the side of the road. If he could, he would build a house between his ribs and give shelter to Cas’ heart as well, carve a space where the two of them could live. Dean thinks maybe he’s been building a home for Cas within himself for years. 

Cas comes first with Dean’s name on his lips, spilling himself over their joined hands, Dean kissing him through it. His eyes go wide and Dean has never felt so lucky in his life.

His own orgasm is pulled from him a minute later with Cas’ voice in his ear, his slick fingers working him over the edge. Cas looks at him and pants, “I want to see,” and Dean lets go, submits to what has always been between them. It comes like a wave, like a tsunami. 

“I love you,” Dean all but sobs. “God, I love you so much.” 

_Do I dare disturb the universe?_

The answer is yes, and the universe smiles.

**

_We have lingered in the chambers of the sea_  
_By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown_  
_Til human voices wake us, and we drown._

**

They lay together after, and Dean thinks it’s possible he’s never felt this good in his life.

No, that’s a lie. He _knows_ he’s never felt this good in his life.

He’s tired--exhausted both physically and emotionally. He thinks back to less than two hours ago, when he walked the night with sadness in his bones, when he thought his feelings unrequited. The evening has presented to him the lowest lows and the highest highs. But Cas’ shoulder is under his cheek, his chest under his palm, and Dean would relive losing Cas a thousand times if it only meant he got to keep him for one night.

“Where’s Sam?” he asks, tracing shapes into Cas’ skin with the pad of his finger.

“He said he thought we should talk alone, so he went and got another room for himself,” Cas murmurs, like the spell between them would break if he talked too loudly. “Although I’m not sure if this is quite what he anticipated.”

Dean chuckles at that and thinks of his brother’s knowing glances, the of looks of recognition, of empathy. “Maybe not,” Dean says, “but I think Sammy might be more perceptive than either of us.” 

Cas pauses before kissing the top of his head. Dean blinks slowly and puts his arm around Cas, holding him closer.

“So you’re really done with Heaven, huh?” he asks, unable to completely keep the wonderment out of his voice. Cas hums.

“I decided that… there was more for me here,” he says slowly. “There are things that I’ll miss. I’ll miss some of my brothers and sisters and the common purpose that we shared. I’ll miss the connection. But… here, this, I couldn’t imagine truly living without it.”

Dean takes a deep breath. He and Cas have both given so much to have this thing they weren’t even sure was real until this evening. Cas decided to leave Heaven for a _maybe_ , for the mere possibility that they could become this. And now Dean has him and he has Dean--mind, body, and soul. Dean vows to make it worth it for Cas every day of their lives, as long as they both live and maybe after that, too.

“What happens now?” His words are slurring slightly as he struggles to remain awake, all the sleepless nights spent thinking about this catching up with him. “Do you get to keep your powers? Or are you like the rest of us?”

There’s a small pause. “I don’t know,” Cas says truthfully after some deliberation. “But I’m not sure I care very much. Whatever comes… we can figure it out.” 

And that itself is an uprising of mentality, Dean knows. He makes a small noise of worry and Cas rubs his back. 

“Rest, Dean,” Cas says. “I’ll be here when you wake up.”

“Promise?” he yawns, so full of joy. He’s waited forever to hear Cas say those words. 

“I promise.” And it sounds like a blessing, a prayer to which Dean is subject. Nothing has ever been of such divinity. They let themselves drown in it.

Cas kisses Dean, and Dean closes his eyes.


End file.
